DAY 145 - Dali, Yunnan, China

One day was all we had in Guilin but that was enough. Most of it is pretty much like any other Chinese city. Horrible white-tiled cubic buildings, soiled with the dirt from industrial development and rusting pipework. It's saving grace is its location right in the middle of the Karst landscape which meant there were pockets of natural beauty buried within the city's grid. With so much rock around, the local tourist board had gone into overdrive to find some animal or vegetable that each stony outcrop resembles in an attempt to pull in the punters. "Elephant Trunk Hill" did sort of resemble its tag, but only from one narrow angle of approach. We didn't see many westerners around which was surprising for such a major tourist destination.

Monday evening we set off for Dali. This involved a train (17 hours), a coach (5 hours), a local bus (the wrong one, 20 minutes) and another local bus (the right one, 30 minutes). The town itself must be one of the few places left in China that hasn't been bulldozed and rebuilt in the name of progress. It's laid out in the original square pattern, bordered on four sides by the original town gates. It's set on a gentle slope: to the east, one of China's largest lakes, to the west the first of the mountains which lead up to the Tibetan plateau.

Driving through the Yunnan countryside, it's was clear that China is developing fast, particularly its infrastructure. It's a shame they can't spend more on their people, most of whom appear dirt poor.

We had a look around town to start with. We were trying to find a supermarket, but most large shops seem to be tourist gift shops dressed up as "local food supermarkets". Dan's been "concerned" that we're running out of deodourant, but they don't seem to sell it here which raises some interesting questions. To be fair, it probably says more about our obsession in the West with excessive personal hygiene than anything else.

On Wednesday we took a cable car up into the mountains behind the town. At the top there was an 11km walk (or "cloudy tourist road" as it was called) around the twists and turns of the valleys. The clever thing was that despite being 2km up, the path was flat for it's entire journey, not rising or falling by more than 100m across it's length. Only in China. We were lucky with the weather too and the views were fantastic. At the other end was another cable car to take us down. Unfortunately at this point a local student latched onto us so he could practice his English. Trapped in a hanging basket, there was no escape. After telling us all about himself and asking about us in return, we luckily reached the bottom of the mountain. We were thus saved from him trying to order a meal (lesson 2) or asking directions to the train station (lesson 3).

On Thursday we were going to have a look at three pagodas (not that we haven't seen enough of them already). They wanted £12! Fortunately, you could see them from the road. They looked like they'd been put up in a couple of hours and were made of plywood. Not a patch on some of the older structures we'd seen earlier on our trip. Bit of a tourist rip-off we think.

 

Tonight's meal was pretty typical of the way restaurants and cafes works here. You order your starters and main courses and they arrive in a random order, one dish at a time, over the next hour. Frequently the starters arrive after the mains and if you have more than one main, you can easily have finished the first before the rest arrives. Tonight I ordered Lasagna. I got a pizza. When I pointed out Lasagna has pasta in it, not bread, I was told that was the way the Naxi (local people) do it. And there was me thinking it was Italian. That said, almost always the food is excellent, if not quite what you thought it would be.